Using RSVP for Analyzing State and Previous Activities for the Mars Exploration Rovers
Brian K. Cooper, Frank R. Hartman, Scott Maxwell, John R. Wright, Jeng Yen · Space OPS 2004 Conference · 2004
Current developments in immersive environments for mission planning include several tools which make up a system for performing and rehearsing missions.This system, known as the Rover Sequencing and Visualization Program (RSVP), includes tools for planning long range sorties for highly autonomous rovers, tools for planning operations with robotic arms, and advanced tools for visualizing telemetry from remote spacecraft and landers.One of the keys to successful planning of rover activities is knowing what the rover has accomplished to date and understanding the current rover state.RSVP builds on the lessons learned and the heritage of the Mars Pathfinder mission [1][2].This paper will discuss the tools and methodologies present in the RSVP suite for examining rover state, reviewing previous activities, visually comparing telemetered results to rehearsed results, and reviewing science and engineering imagery.In addition we will present how this tool suite was used on the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) project to explore the surface of Mars.Traditional telemetry viewing software focuses solely on text based displays.These displays can often overwhelm the user with data overload and making it difficult to see which data is important and which is not.Text based display of data works well when you only need to see a limited number of values and are good for showing values with high numeric precision but are inferior when you need to visualize data spatially or temporally.One of the keys to successful space operations is timely and intuitive feedback on how your spacecraft is performing.RSVP provides this feedback visually to operators via multiple immersive views into the telemetry data.The key modalities RSVP provides for visualizing telemetry actuals and simulated predictions are: stereo imagery viewed with 3D shuttered goggles, dynamic flyover of terrain models showing the interaction of rovers with that terrain, and time synchronized graphic plots